The priests lived in the adobe haciendas that the Spanish had erected centuries before, and, as they counted their beads and dozed in calm happiness, they became rich in flocks and the tributes received from the simple-minded red men. Sometimes they wondered in a mild way at the golden trinkets and ornaments brought in by the Indians and were puzzled to know where they came from, but it seemed never to have occurred to the good men that they could obtain the same precious metal by using the pick and shovel. The years came and passed, and red men and white men continued to walk over California without dreaming of the immeasurable riches that had been nestling for ages under their feet. [Illustration: GOLD WASHING--THE SLUICE.] One day in February, 1848, James W. Marshall, who had come to California from New Jersey some years before, and had been doing only moderately well with such odd jobs as he could pick up, was working with a companion at building a sawmill for Colonel John A. Sutter, who had immigrated to this country from Baden in 1834. Going westward, he founded a settlement on the present site of Sacramento in 1841. He built Fort Sutter on the Sacramento, where he was visited by Fremont on his exploring expedition in 1846. Marshall and his companion were engaged in deepening the mill-race, the former being just in front of the other. Happening to look around, he asked: "What is that shining near your boot?" His friend reached his hand down into the clear water and picked up a bright, yellow fragment and held it between his fingers. "It is brass," he said; "but how bright it is!" "It can't be brass," replied Marshall, "for there isn't a piece of brass within fifty miles of us." The other turned it over again and again in his hand, put it in his mouth and bit it, and then held it up once more to the light. Suddenly he exclaimed: "I believe it's gold!" "I wonder if that's possible," said Marshall, beginning to think his companion was right; "how can we find out?" "My wife can tell; she has made some lye from wood-ashes and will test it." [Illustration: GOLD WASHING--THE CRADLE.] The man took the fragment to his wife, who was busy washing, and, at his request, she boiled it for several hours with the lye. Had it been brass--the only other metal it possibly could have been--it would have turned a greenish-black. When examined again, however, its beautiful bright lustre was undiminished. There was scarcely a doubt that it was pure gold. The two men returned to the mill-race with pans, and washed out probably fifty dollars' worth of gold. Despite the certainty of his friend, Marshall was troubled by a fear that the fragment was neither brass nor gold, but some worthless metal of which he knew nothing. He carefully tied up all that had been gathered, mounted a fleet horse, and rode to Sutter's store, thirty miles down the American River.